


The Sides of a Triangle (make it stronger)

by AngeNoir



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 08:35:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2144109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What's troubling Hansel?" Mina asks, and Gretel looks over at her brother, her closest companion, and realizes she doesn't know. Gretel's not used to not-knowing anything about Hansel, and she begins to worry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sides of a Triangle (make it stronger)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ijemanja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ijemanja/gifts).



Gretel looked up as Mina came over and sat down beside her on the grass. It was late at night, their camp dark as Edward and Benjamin snored and Hansel finished up the camp clean-up before going to sleep as well. The dry, slowly-cooling air was a welcome change from cold, dripping northern forests, and their camp was set near a rock outcropping above the rolling hills and farmland. They had just finished up a job, been paid, and Gretel had learned through trial and error that leaving town as quickly as possible after getting paid was important – less chance for the authorities or greedy townspeople to decide that the witch hunters didn’t deserve the money and go after them.

Here, on the outskirts of this town, following the road deeper inland to see the high mountains of the southeast, they had camped. Gretel always had first shift; Hansel had taken last, with Edward taking the middle shift. Ben and Mina sometimes stayed up for a shift, but this life was still new enough to the two of them that they needed a lot more sleep than Edward, with his stamina, and Gretel and Hansel, who were used to living on the road. Mina normally was asleep by now; Gretel smiled at the good witch and bumped her shoulder gently against Mina’s shoulder. “Hey there,” she said. “What’s up?”

Mina looked down at her feet – she wore sturdy boots, now, instead of the lighter shoes she once wore, though she didn’t like and didn’t wear trousers and tunics the way that Gretel did – and played with the leather laces. “Have you… talked to Hansel recently?” she murmured.

Gretel glanced over to where he was finishing packing up their plates and neatening their campsite to make it easier to break it come morning and move on. “Not… really, why?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

Mina sighed. “I had thought, perhaps, being brother and sister and more to one another, you would be close. Something troubles him deeply, and I cannot discern its root.”

Gretel considered asking about the ‘more’ bit – she and Hansel were in fact more than brother and sister to one another, but it wasn’t something they’d told anyone, least of all Mina – but Hansel was more important than figuring out how Mina knew. “How do you know?” Gretel asked, but now she was squinting at her brother’s broad back, watching his motions, looking for any of the tremors in his limbs that would signify a worsening of his condition, for any of the familiar tells that would mean he was angry. Hansel was pretty straightforward and easy to understand – something she had come to rely on as their lives took a turn for the weird. After all, it had barely been a month since finding out that not only was their mother a witch and that there were good witches, but that she herself was a witch and could do things she had never before thought possible.

Mina sighed and put her chin on her knees. “Witches can tell. There is an aura around humans, and animals, too – a sign that not all is well. Surely you’ve seen it? Or perhaps sensed that the light, the world, is darker near certain people than others?” Mina plucked a long piece of grass and worried it with her fingers. “There is so much to teach you, and so much that I take for granted…”

Gretel thought about it. There were times she had gotten feelings from someone that they were angry, yeah, but that was easily body language, tone, the way someone said something – or didn’t say something. Hansel was different; she’d learned his body as she’d learned her own, tied up in one another and united against a world that tried to tear them apart as children and then tried to tear them down as adolescents becoming witch killers. She had never needed to watch Hansel to know when he was mad – she had always just _known_. “He’s not mad,” she said finally.

“No, not mad,” Mina agreed, but her voice was distant, absent. “Something else.”

Gretel looked at Mina a moment, and then hitched a shoulder. “I’ll ask him later.”

***

Which was how she found out that Hansel was avoiding her.

It was actually an impressive feat, given that there were only five of them and they had one cart and three horses. It wasn’t like Hansel had a place to go, not really. Yet he deftly avoided any face-to-face interaction with her on their own, always by Ben’s side – showing him the different weapons (yes, even the ridiculous ones that Hansel made when he was fifteen and yes, was thinking with his dick more than his head) and how to identify patterns, how to track and how to hunt food for that night’s meal. He was even by Edward’s side, even though he was still visibly uneasy around Edward.

They’d found another job at a town – Gretel suspected it was a goblin, not a witch, but both ate children and it was a paying job, so she took it – and she was antsy and upset. She had never gone this long without talking to Hansel, let alone sleeping in the same room (and bed). It left her feeling adrift, a feeling she really didn’t like at all. It was made even worse when, after exiting the meeting she’d been at with the mayor and sheriff, she found out Hansel had gotten them rooms.

Separate rooms. One for the boys – except Edward, who would be sleeping with their cart in the stables – and one for the girls.

Gretel used most of their remaining funds to drink cheap beer and stare morosely at the fire.

When she staggered up to the rooms, she opened the boy’s room to see Ben splayed out, all long limbs and teen awkwardness, on the bed, Hansel half under the bed, curled into a tight ball. It caught in her mind, stuck there, and she stood a moment longer trying to get her intoxicated mind to work out why that was significant, why Hansel was putting this space between them, what she could do to make it better.

“Hey.”

The touch at her arm had Gretel turning to see Mina standing there in the moonlight coming in from the window at the end of the hall.

“Are you alright?” Mina whispered, and Gretel could feel tears at the corners of her eyes – tears she hadn’t cried since she’d watched Hansel nearly die when he was nine and he’d missed a dose, tears she hadn’t cried since they’d lost their way in a forest and never found it again except in each other.

Mina’s face softened, and she gently tugged Gretel away from the boys’ door, letting it swing shut as she led Gretel into their room and silently undressed Gretel. When Gretel was nothing in underclothing – breast band and loincloth – Mina tugged her down to the bed and spooned behind her, running a soft hand up and down Gretel’s forearm. “It’s alright to miss him,” Mina whispered in the dark.

“That’s stupid,” Gretel managed, even though her throat was tight. “He’s just down the hall.”

Mina made a small noise in her throat and nuzzled against Gretel’s tight braid and nape of her neck. “When I saw Hansel, I knew he had strong ties – protective, I thought. I did not know how much you and he complete one another, though that explains his reluctance at the spring.”

“You two _did_ have sex, didn’t you?” Gretel complained. “Dammit, I know we’re not really exclusive, but I thought he was shyer than that, especially with women. And he always was so put out when I found someone for a night.”

Mina giggled, her nightshirt tickling the back of Gretel’s spine distractingly. For a moment, Gretel considered ignoring it, considered letting herself just fall asleep bracketed by Mina’s arms, or whether she was going to continue this.

Fuck it. Mina obviously didn’t care, and Gretel didn’t know what was going on with Hansel, but he clearly was avoiding the both of them now.

She rolled over to face Mina, taking in the flimsy, sheer garment and Mina’s warm smile. “What was that for?” she asked.

Mina paused. “What?”

“That giggle,” Gretel murmured. “What was that for?”

Even in the dark, Gretel could see Mina’s cheeks flush. “Oh. Ah. Hansel was – he was very shy, yes.”

Narrowing her eyes at Mina, Gretel pushed her brain past the sogginess of the beer to exclaim loudly, “Oh my god, he tried to use me was an excuse, didn’t he? Did he blush? His blush is so adorable—”

“Shh!” Mina put a hand over Gretel’s mouth, glancing at the room’s door. “Most are asleep, but we could still wake someone up.”

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Gretel said, muffled by Mina’s fingers.

Again, that fetching blush, and Gretel noticed with interest that it traveled down Mina’s throat. Hansel could blush almost to his navel, and it should have looked gross because it was splotchy but instead it looked adorable. Maybe Mina’s blush stopped at her shoulders – maybe it went deeper.

Gretel kinda wanted to find out.

“He was – endearing. It took a bit to coax him into the spring. And then he babbled.” Mina’s eyes went warm, glittering in the dark. “Began detailing one of your adventures hunting a witch that had lived in the water, or something along those lines. I wanted to cuddle him close.”

“He’s like that,” Gretel chuckled. Hansel, overeager and nervous when it came to sex, to intimacy of any kind. Fought so hard to look tough and intimidating, especially since he was not a particularly large man and perpetually felt younger than everyone else.

(And let’s face it, because the weapons he designed were ridiculous. A _dick-gun_ , Hansel? Really? Gretel refused to touch it with a ten-foot pole.)

Mina let out a soft sigh, and looked away from Gretel. “I do not think it was my encounter with Hansel that has triggered this behavior, but if it is—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Gretel said.

They laid in the dark a few minutes more before Gretel sighed explosively and said, “So can I kiss you now?”

Startled, Mina’s head jerked up, eyes wide as they met Gretel’s. “What?”

“Well, I think I’ve established that we let the other take on outside lovers, and you’re beautiful, and I think you’ve been thinking about it awhile.” Gretel hitched her shoulder. “If not, no problem – I stagger over to that other bed and tomorrow we’re hunting down another witch.”

After a few moments, Mina tentatively leaned forward.

Which was enough for Gretel to meet her halfway, tasting soft, chapped lips, so different from the thinner men’s lips Gretel was used to. Gretel and Hansel were both equal-opportunity lovers, in their minds – it was just that it was safer and easier to have no-strings sex with fellow bounty hunters and witch killers, and that type of profession didn’t often lend itself to women all that much. Gretel was a little uncertain, but she knew what sounds meant pleasure and what sounds meant pain. And Mina wasn’t all that shy about showing Gretel what to do or where to go. It wasn’t long from kissing to tasting the line of Mina’s shoulders, and from there to trailing kisses over Mina’s abdomen, and then lifting up the hem of the nightshirt to reveal nothing but pale, pale skin.

Gretel had done oral sex on men before – mostly her brother, but one or two other guys that were more respectful of her than most other men were – but doing it on a woman was… wow. Mina’s thighs quivered and her hips bucked, she tasted wonderfully salty and it took a bit of trial and error to figure out what really pushed Mina’s buttons – long licks didn’t do anything, but curling her tongue shallowly in Mina’s entrance had her gasping. Then Mina was tugging Gretel up and so Gretel slid back up over Mina’s abdomen, tasting and nipping, sliding the nightshirt all the way up over Mina’s small breasts, leaning down to lick and suckle at the nipples, feeling the weight of someone else’s breasts in her hands.

“Gretel,” Mina gasped, body undulating, her hands dragging down Gretel’s back and sides to undo the loincloth.

Then Mina’s fingers dipped into Gretel’s cunt and Gretel gasped, falling forward, knee pressing against Mina’s sex. This put her in the perfect position to ride Mina’s thigh and so she did, rocking and moaning at the sensations of Mina’s fingers against her clit, against her nipples. God, just everywhere, and Mina’s body was soft, yielding. Beautiful.

They both could have multiple orgasms, which meant Gretel didn’t need to wait for her partner to get it up again. That, more than anything, was the best discovery of the night.

The best discovery of next day, however, was that apparently fucking with Mina made Hansel angry enough that he wasn’t ignoring her anymore – no, he was glaring at her, and she knew how to deal with anger better than whatever it was that he had been feeling before.

***

They sparred often enough, away from the others so that if something should happen – they didn’t use guns, but they did use knives, particularly throwing ones – Edward, Mina, and Ben weren’t in any danger. This time, Mina asked if she could come along and watch, and Hansel had said no at the same time Gretel had said yes.

Hansel wasn’t too happy with that, either.

Now, as they fought viciously with one another on the hard and dusty ground, Gretel growled, “You’re being a dick.”

That surprised Hansel enough that he froze, and she landed a vicious uppercut that staggered him back, until he recovered by a roll and blocked her next punch. “ _I’m_ the dick?” he said, indignant and more than a little hurt. “You’re the dick who went and fucked Mina!”

“She’s not some prize to be won. You’ve been acting like an asshole to the two of us since we left that town!” Gretel snapped, driving blows towards Hansel’s core and dodging his kicks and follow-up punches.

Suddenly Hansel stopped entirely, hands falling to his side, and it was only her good reflexes that stopped her fist from plowing into his nose and breaking it. “Look,” he said softly, “just… can you let it go? I’m not bothering you.” His shoulders hunched, and he stepped back – and then stepped sideways when Mina started walking forward.

Gretel watched him with narrowed eyes, and slowly said, “It still bothers you, the witchcraft, doesn’t it?”

Hansel flinched.

“What the _hell_ , Hansel? We’re children of a witch! A good witch! Without my magic and Mina’s knowledge of magic, Mina would be dead right now! Hell, without Mina’s magic, _you_ would’ve been dead twice over!”

“Once!” he snapped back, and then visibly fought not to say anything else.

But Gretel was good at pushing Hansel’s buttons, something she’d had to learn by necessity because he shut down so often and kept things bottled up. “Once is more than enough! Witchcraft saved your ass. I would have _died_ on that mountain if not for your enchanted weapons. Mina put her life on the line to save you. And yet you still hate it? Why?”

“I don’t need your intervention, _Gretel_ ,” Hansel snarled.

“You kinda do, because you’re an asshat and you’re my brother and I’m going to get involved whether you like it or not because that’s what siblings _do_ ,” Gretel shouted. “You’re acting like a dick because you’re jealous, or you’re acting like a dick because you’re close-minded!”

“A witch nearly killed me, and you!” Hansel yelled back, but there was something in his eyes – fear. Deep-seated terror. “Witches – some witches don’t kill kids, I get that, but you can’t expect – look, I said I’m dealing with it!”

“You are not dealing with it in a healthy way,” Mina said, and Gretel had noticed her moving closer, but obviously Hansel hadn’t, because he stumbled back and fell on his ass. “I understand that you may never feel fully comfortable with witchcraft, and I will do my utmost not to use any around you – as will Gretel—”

“Hey, I didn’t agree to that!” Gretel said resentfully.

Mina ignored the interruption. “—but you cannot shut us out. We both care for you, Hansel.”

“Yeah,” he snorted, and there was hurt there, and fear, and loss. “So much that when you had to share a room for the first night alone you ended up fucking until early morning.”

Gretel began to say that he’d never had a problem with who she fucked before, and they often shared lovers between them – Hansel sleeping with them one night and Gretel the next, or vice versa – when Mina said calmly, “Next time, we will invite you.”

“Next time?” Gretel parroted, surprised and more than a little pleased.

“Invite me?” Hansel echoed, looking stunned.

Mina crouched down next to Hansel and ran a hand over his hair, and Gretel watched with worry as he trembled but didn’t move his eyes from her face. He really was terrified, she realized. All this time, and he was trying to deal with this alone. Gretel had embraced it, had wanted the power and strength, had wanted to do good, follow in her mother’s footsteps, but she’d never once asked Hansel what he wanted in that scenario.

“If you want. I like you, Hansel, and I enjoyed our time together. I also very much admire your sister, and she’s an eager, enthusiastic lover.” Mina’s cheeks pinked as she talked, but she didn’t stop until she said, “I would love to have you both, at the same time, since you two are already lovers.”

Gretel was assaulted with visions of Hansel fucking into her and Mina riding her face, and went cherry red. Hansel, on the other hand, glanced between Mina and Gretel for a few seconds before shaking his head hard. “Look, I’m… I’m trying. Okay? I’m fucking trying. You’re going to let me keep trying and eventually I’ll push it out of the way.”

“But that’s the thing,” Gretel said, before Mina could say anything more. Hansel turned to look at her, pulse fluttering in his neck, and she kneeled down next to him. “Hansel, you’re not alone. I don’t know what the hell gave you that idea, but _you’re not alone_. I’m not leaving you. Not now, not ever. Not for Mina, not for Edward, not even because of magic.” Hesitantly, she reached out to curl an arm around Hansel’s shoulders, and it was a toss-up whether he’d let her do this or not on a good day, let alone on a bad day like this.

Yet still, he folded up against her as if she was eleven and he was nine again, and she petted his hair gently. “We’re okay,” she murmured. “It’s not – look, since you obviously don’t like magic, we won’t use it. Okay? We won’t.”

“We need all the advantages we can get,” Hansel muttered against her shoulder, but his grip on her clothes eased slightly.

“Not at the expense of you,” Mina countered, and she obviously wanted to do more but contented herself with simply linking her hands in her lap, her tan and orange dress dusty from the ground.

Hansel shuddered against Gretel’s side, and Gretel traced a finger down his jaw. “Let’s travel to the next town, get a room for Ben, and try it out. Maybe it will work, you know? Maybe everything can turn out just fine.”

Mina nodded. “That sounds like a good plan. I will let Edward and Ben know we will be moving on.” With that, she stood up and started to walk away – but before she truly was out of sight, she turned around and caught Gretel’s eyes. It was almost as clear as if Mina had shouted to her – Gretel’s words and reassurance were more necessary to Hansel than anything else anyone could do.

Watching Mina leave, Gretel almost missed Hansel’s whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” she asked, knocking her forehead gentle against his. “For being human? Don’t ever apologize for that.”

He pulled away, and she let him – he didn’t always do well with people holding him, not even in bed, and she’d learned to let him dictate when and how she could comfort him. Standing up, he paced five or six steps away and then turned on his heel and came back to stand in front of her, fists clenched. He was trembling, and his eyes were red but dry.

“I can’t – I have to get over this. I can’t hate a part of you, Gretel. I _can’t_.”

Slowly, she stood up and spread her arms expansively. “I hate the part of you that comes up with ingenious weapons designs and yet consistently makes them phallic representations, as if you have to compensate somehow,” she said frankly. “I hate that you often throw yourself at a problem instead of coming up with the decent plans I know you can make if you just hold off on your first impulse. You can hate parts of a person, Hansel. I know you hate the fact that I steal the covers when we sleep in the same bed. And you hate my horse.”

“Your horse is a devil,” Hansel grumbled, turning on his heel again and stalking away. Once again, he stopped, but instead of turning around, he said quietly, “It’s my problem. It’s something I need to figure out in my head. Rushing me isn’t going to make it better. Might even make it worse.”

Gretel heaved a sigh. “Do you want us to have the same sleeping arrangements as last night? Because let me tell you, I was really looking forward to having both you and Mina in my bed. You more than her, but if both are on the table…” she trailed off suggestively.

Hansel lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “We’ll see.”

***

“How do you want to do this?”

Gretel looked over at Hansel, who was standing in the far corner of the room. “It’s up to Hansel,” she replied to Mina. “If he just wants to watch us two, if he wants to participate, whatever. Is that okay, Hansel?”

He took a steadying breath – sex was the one point in his skillset that he was highly insecure about – and licked his lips. “I want – I want to trust you two. So I – I want to be on my back. Under the both of you.”

Mina and Gretel shared a glance before Gretel said, “He’s pretty good with his mouth, at least I think so. Do you want his cock or his tongue?”

Mina looked at Hansel, and he didn’t offer up any direction, just stared at her in surprise and lust. After a few moments of silence, she swallowed and said, “His – his tongue. If – if that’s—”

“That’s perfect,” Gretel replied immediately. She loved his mouth, yeah, but actual penetration was something Gretel really liked, and she wanted to reestablish her connection with Hansel.

Turning to Hansel, she asked, “Can we undress you? Or do you want to do that yourself?”

He shifted on his heels – he’d already taken off his boots, standing in stocking-clad feet on the inn’s wooden floor. “Um. I guess – I guess you can if you guys – if you want to. There’s a type of witch that eats humans by peeling off their flesh—”

Mina stepped up to him and gently captured his mouth in a kiss, muffling his words, rubbing at his shoulders to get him to relax. To the side, Gretel knelt a little to start undoing the lacing of Hansel’s trousers while Mina continued to kiss Hansel, fingers moving to undo his vest and slide it off his shoulders.

Seeing that Mina had it mostly in control, Gretel stood back and undid her own lacings, quickly pulling off her vest and corset before peeling down her trousers. Clad in her shirt, loincloth, and stockings, she shucked off the stockings and shirt in a hurried mess before realizing Mina had simply slipped off the overdress and was in her slip.

The light in the room was warm and bright enough to see that Mina wore nothing, no breast band or loincloth, beneath her slip.

“Damn, that’s going to be distracting in the field,” Gretel grumbled as she unwrapped her loincloth and untied her breast band.

Hansel didn’t reply; instead, he stared in wonder at her, hands slowly dragging the slip up to reveal toned legs with fine hair, thick brush of curls at the apex of Mina’s thighs. Gretel licked her lips – her leg hair was coarser than that, and she envied Mina’s softness and femininity sometimes – and came over to slide her hands down Hansel’s pants and drag them down his strong legs.

He shivered under her hands.

“Bed,” she murmured.

It took some maneuvering once everyone was undressed – the beds were not very big at all, and there would be no way all three of them could sleep there unless they stacked up like boards or something – but finally Hansel was on his back and Gretel was kneeling over his beautiful ( _perfectly average_ , why he felt the need to compensate when it was _lovely_ , Gretel had no idea) flushed cock, Mina facing her as she tentatively spread her legs wide so that Hansel could tilt his mouth up and lick at her cunt.

“With me?” Gretel asked, and she leaned forward to kiss Mina as her hips lowered, taking in Hansel’s cock, eyes fluttering shut at the feel. Mina copied her movements almost automatically, leaning forward as well so their lips met. Then Mina gasped and jerked forward, enough that Gretel reached up to steady her and ended up grabbing her tit.

Mina pulled back from the kiss, head thrown back. “Oh, oh, Gretel, you weren’t – ahhh – weren’t exaggerating about – hahh – his tongue.”

Hansel could drive Gretel to orgasm within two minutes – they’d had a bet about it one night when they were eighteen and sixteen – and Gretel smiled, running her thumb over Mina’s hardened nipple. She wanted to come, too, and so she began grinding and pumping her hips against Hansel’s groin.

A muffled groan came from the bed, Hansel’s hands gripping at Mina’s thighs just a little tighter, and Gretel shuddered as she chased her own completion.

“Han – Hansel,” Mina moaned, falling forward to brace herself against the bed. Gretel leaned forward a little, tilting Mina’s head so she could kiss those breathless little moans from Mina’s lips, and then Mina was shuddering. Almost before Gretel could comprehend that Mina was climaxing, Hansel deliberately shifted his hips and bucked up, slamming home in a twist that had Gretel gasping.

“Dammit, Hansel,” she groaned, and then it was mere minute or two more before she was coming, convulsing around his cock, and he grunted through it. Mina had begun moaning again, sharp little gasps and hitches of breath that were both adorable and filthy. It took Gretel a moment longer until she could slide off his cock and take it into her mouth. It didn’t take her long for her to have him breaking away from Mina and huffing, thrusting into her mouth, and Mina lazily began to push up from her prone position. Then she gave a little shudder, a stuttering movement that was the result of Hansel muffling his groans in her wet pussy.

He came with a deep moan, followed by Mina, and Gretel was very pleased with how fucked out they both were – yeah, it wasn’t a lot, wasn’t their longest or best, but the sheer newness of all three of them had all of them on a hair-trigger.

They even managed to figure out how to share the bed, and it wasn’t exactly comfortable; Hansel was on his back, Gretel on her side pressed between him and the wall, Mina splayed out on his front. Mina was asleep and Gretel was almost there when Hansel murmured, “That was – amazing.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, hoping her arm wouldn’t kill her when they woke up in the morning.

“Gretel?”

“Yes?” she sighed.

“I don’t – we need you, to use magic. To learn how to control your power. But can you – not do it where I can see? For a while.”

She leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his shoulder. “Of course, Hansel.”


End file.
